Tuesday, February 19, 2013

Who Leads the Religious Zionist Movement?

Responding to the news that Tzipi Livni will be the first to join Netanyahu's new coalition, a Likud spokesman states:

""לבני החלישה משמעותית את כושר המיקוח של בנטולפיד. אין סיכוי שהרבנים יאפשרו לבנט לפזר את הכנסת. הוא יצטרך לזחול לממשלה בתנאים של נתניהו""Livni has significantly weakend the bargining power of Bennett and Lapid. There is no chance that the Rabbis will allow Bennett to call for a new election. He will need to crawl into the government on Netanyahu's conditions".

This is another example where the general public is under the impression that Rabbis call the shots in the Dati-Leumi (Religious Zionism) movement. For most of the non religious public, there is little difference between the Haredim and the Dati Leumim. As I've previously stated, it is doubtful just how much influence rabbis really have on the RZ community - certainly less than they are credited with. It is further unclear just how much influence they have on Naftali Bennett, who has at the very least stated that they have only a consulting role.